The prior art programs of enforcing speed laws for motor vehicles relied primarily on police manned vehicles, such as marked automobiles and motorcycles with a varied use of unmarked vehicles--the amount of use being a judgment decision; mobile and fixed radar equipment; and the use of civilian spotters. For those caught from the foregoing, the courts have fixed penalties, in various degrees of severity, to act as punishments for violaters and examples for those who might be tempted to violate. Also, the results of the Court decisions were given various degrees of publicity to further act as a deterrent to others.
Despite such prior attempts to eliminate speeding of motor vehicles, the number of violations seems or actually does increase rather than decrease.
Attempts have been made to use mechanical devices to monitor traffic and visually and/or audibly indicate violations. However, the lack of certainty and accuracy of such devices has resulted in the lack of, or substantially no use of, such devices on a general scale. A device announcing and visually indicating to the public that a certain vehicle is being operated in a manner so that the driver is guilty of a speeding violation must be positively accurate for the offender to favorably react and blame himself or herself rather than the mechanical device, which may or may not be accurate. Also, third parties will not properly cooperate to eliminate speeders if they are not positive that the warning devices are free of all possible errors. The old adage that an inaccurate scale is no scale at all can be properly paraphrased to define mechanical devices to indicate the excess speed rate of passing vehicles.
Prior U.S. Letters Pat. Nos. illustrating mechanical devices attempting to regulate vehicular traffic are: 2,325,435; 2,874,367; 2,911,635; 3,054,087; and 3,544,958.